Men's Room
by Lovelybrutal
Summary: Entry for Beyond the Pale 2.  Bella needs to sink to the bottom to feel anything.  She also needs someone else to take her there.  AH.  Rated M for language, non-consensual sex, and dark and upsetting subject matter.  **HEED THE WARNINGS PLEASE**


Please see the rest of the Beyond the Pale entries in their c2 here: www (dot) fanfiction (dot) net/community/Beyond_The_Pale_Contest_Entries/83159/14/0/1/ and vote for your favorites starting November 28th.

Beyond the Pale Contest

Title: Men's Room

Pen Name: LovelyBrutal

Characters: Bella

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or its characters, nor do I profit from this little endeavor.

**Warnings: PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF DIET CRYSTAL PEPSI PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE PROCEEDING! This story contains graphic depictions of rape. Pain. Serious mental illness. Did I mention rape. That means sexual intercourse without mutual consent. This is an entry for a contest featuring taboo subjects, the forbidden, the dark side. If you don't think you're up to it, please step away with my sincere thanks for knowing your own limits. If you proceed anyway, do not presume to scold me for something I have cautioned you against. This is your warning. **

Image that inspired you: 13 (link: www (dot) beyond the pale (dot) blogspot (dot) com/2011/08/thirteen (dot) html … replace those dots with real ones.

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What is life for?

Is it a persistent holding pattern? Are we meant to just wait and wait and wait for moments of happiness that never come, desires that will never be fulfilled?

Is it a swamp, each year sucking us deeper down, until finally the muck engulfs us and we drown in it?

As I stub out my cigarette and smooth my apron over the stiff pink cotton of the waitress uniform, turning to get back to work, where I will steep myself in the scents of coffee and grease, I'm pretty sure it's the latter.

Step by step we entrench ourselves in hopelessly mundane bullshit that distracts us from the pointlessness of our lives.

Day by day we float. Never to fly, never to fall, always in orbit.

.

When my shift is over, it's 11:00 at night. I climb into the cold, plastic-leather seat of my car and light a cigarette. Drive to the highway, light a cigarette. Pull into the driveway, light a cigarette. Microwave myself some leftover roast beef from work, right in the styrofoam takeout box. The glossy white shell warps and melts with the heat, shedding a horrid toxic scent all over the food. I eat it anyway.

I only want one thing, one goddamn thing.

And roast beef is not it.

.

It never really goes away, but it does go on vacation sometimes. I have weeks at a time where I don't burn and ache and shiver with the want. I think, maybe this time, maybe finally I'm free. I go to Ikea, to Bed Bath & Beyond, to Whole Foods. I fill my house with new soft furnishings, put new sheets on the bed. I buy rice and milk and little plastic trays of plump, soft raspberries.

I hang up pictures. I buy new clothes.

For a while I live just like everybody else, and for brief flashes of time, I even believe it.

A couple of weeks later, the picture frames are shattered, the raspberries coated in fine grey clouds of mold.

It happens over and over. This life, this period of consumption and wickedness and the mutual exchange of fluids, it's not enough.

I want something I can never have, and there is nowhere I can go to get away from that.

.

My phone twitches and chirps on my nightstand. I was already asleep.

It's him.

"Hey."

"Hey. You sleeping?"

"Mmmhm."

He pauses. Most people would apologize and tell me to go back to sleep. He doesn't.

Maybe that's why I can tolerate him. It's more than I can say for anyone else.

"Can I come over?"

His breathing is loud; he's probably been drinking.

I could say no, roll myself back into the warm covers. But then he won't come over.

I'm not sure what I want, so I err on the side of what _he_ wants.

"Okay."

He lives in one of the other buildings in my complex, so it's just a couple of minutes before the knob turns with a click-slip of the latch. A scuffle as he wipes his feet on the mat. And then he's in bed beside me.

God, his feet are freezing. Did he walk over here barefoot?

Judging from the heavy scent of scotch on his breath, he might not be in any condition to operate a shoelace.

His hands are sliding across my naked back, almost as cold as his feet, and the stinging his touch leaves against my sleep-warm skin wakes me up.

"Can you turn over?"

I do as he asks, and he is on top of me instantly. He knows better than to kiss me on the mouth, but he presses his hot, liquor-soaked lips to my throat, leaving wet trails that cool as he moves lower, one hand already reaching under me to cup and squeeze my ass. His mouth finds my breast under my thin black tank top and I feel myself responding to him, becoming aroused and lifting my hips into his touch, but this is a trick of physiology, a lie of nature. Jasper is good looking enough, but nothing about what he's doing turns me on.

The only reason I let him do this, the only reason I keep up this game, is that it's interesting. Letting myself be used is more interesting than being alone.

One roving hand reaches between my legs and finds me ready enough. He drags my panties down until they can fall off one leg, still hanging off the other, and unceremoniously pushes his hips forward, entering me unkindly and quickly groaning, collapsing half of his weight onto my chest.

"Fuck, you feel so good."

I smile. I don't think I feel _that_ good. But I sort of like that he tells me so.

His eyes are closed, the muscles in his arms tense as he concentrates, withdrawing partway, pushing in as far as skin and bone allow. He heaves a deep sigh and I can feel how badly he wanted this, feel him guzzling the pleasure he was hoping for. Savoring the sweetness, the warmth he has found.

I'm jealous of what he's able to feel.

But only for a moment, as he starts rutting into me in earnest, and a film of irritated resentment crawls over my skin. This is usually the part when he starts asking me questions.

"You like that, baby, you like my cock filling up your little pussy?"

"Mmmm," I respond, aloof.

He's not listening though. I could have said, "I have to puke," and he'd keep fucking me.

"Yeah, I bet you like that, don't you? Like me inside that pretty pink pussy? That wet little pussy?"

I shrug, but he doesn't notice. I guess. I guess it's pink. And wet enough. He keeps using the word 'pussy' like it was an incantation.

His eyes are shut tight, and I wonder what he wants to keep them from seeing. But I'm glad too, because I get to study him this way.

He has a nice mouth, lips wet and full. Their color is just shy of girlish. They part slightly as I watch, and reveal a slice of his front teeth. One is crooked. The scent of his fondness for J&B gets stronger and I know it's seeping into my sheets, into my skin.

"Oh, shit, baby, you feel that? You feel how good that is?"

He likes to talk, likes _me_ to talk. I decide to be kind.

"So good, Jasper."

He doesn't notice that I say it like a kindergarten teacher, and I smile. It's not that I don't enjoy sex. To the contrary; I think about it all the time. And it's not that Jasper's bad; he's not real big, but he has girth on his side. He isn't a bad lay, he's just a _wrong_ lay. I wrap my legs around his back, changing the angle and drawing him closer.

"Fuck, you're so … _fuck_," he pumps faster and I giggle, because he just told me that _I'm so fuck_.

The muscles in his belly tense and with a breathless _Oh_, his face tightens and he reels with the unmatched satisfaction of a drunken orgasm.

I stifle a yawn and feel him withdraw from me, warm liquid already dribbling its escape, slickness of the act already cool and sticky against my inner thighs.

"Oh, baby," he half-laughs, wasted with relief, "oh, sweetheart, that was ..."

I smile and nod at him, and he gets up, slipping his legs into boxers that were still nestled into his discarded jeans. He throws on his black cigarette-logo t-shirt, slides his arms into a flannel that may never have seen the inside of a washer.

He's barefoot, like I thought. He approaches me and leans over to kiss the middle of my cheek.

"I ..." he shakes his head like he's changed his mind about something. The look that he gives me falls somewhere between tenderness and pity.

"Thank you, Bella. You're really special, you know that?"

I laugh, because sometimes, when he's been drinking tequila instead of scotch, he calls me Beth. How's that for _special_?

He squints one eye at me, a half of a wink, and then there is the sound of the latch, and I'm alone again.

It's a few breaths until the scotch-scent starts to fade. I get up to clean him off me, and on the way back from the bathroom I notice something on my coffeetable.

Jasper's left me little gifts before. Usually around the holidays or after a particularly long lay. Once it was a pecan pie from the bakery down on Brighton Road. One time it was a bottle of body lotion that smelled like candy dipped in Windex.

This time it's wrapped in a crinkly plastic grocery bag.

A little burgundy velvet box.

It snaps open in my hand, and inside is a little silver chain with a dragonfly pendant. The wings are decorated with asymmetrical pieces of colored glass.

I take it out and drop it into my hand, its lightness confirming that he couldn't have paid more than ten dollars for it.

I don't really care what it cost though, I'm more interested in why this made him think of me.

Am I some pretty, delicate little thing to him?

Does he think I like dragonflies? Or jewelry at all? I've never worn any in front of him, ever.

Does he think of me as some flitting insect, darting and humming? A summer visitor, all shimmering wings and pulsing thorax?

I snap the wings off it, feeling the new sharpness where they had once been anchored with the pad of my thumb before I throw the bag, the box, and the trinket in the trash.

I want one thing. Just one thing.

And a thanks-for-letting-me-fuck-you necklace from Jasper Whitlock of building H, unit 37 is not it.

But, maybe, it's a little closer.

.

When I wake up, there are tears still wet on my face, their faint tracks visible on my pillowcase, and the smell of semen on my sheets.

I'm confused.

Am I supposed to feel used? To feel ashamed or stupid? Should I be heartbroken?

Why don't I feel _anything_?

I wonder if my life is going to be just like this, forever.

A freight train screaming through the night, pounding the tracks like thunder, all the cargo containers empty save the whistle of time.

I'm pretty sure it is.

Unless I do something about it.

I slide my legs out of bed, feeling the slight sting between my legs, the tattletale, threadbare reminder of his desire, as I cross the room to the dresser for a cigarette.

It's my favorite part, really. The afterwards. The little tugging pain. A memento of my body's resistance, like a little red string tied around my finger. Don't forget, it whispers. Don't forget, he was inside of you. He pushed his way inside your _body_.

I wish it hurt more.

And before I even lift the spark to my cigarette, I can feel something in my lungs, a trembling, fierce thing. I can feel it in my veins, insistent, grinding, scraping, like I've injected myself with sand.

I feel it between my legs last, and strongest. Like a weight has dropped low into my belly, pressing hot and thick against me. Shifting my weight as I pull a breath of smoke, I can feel my skin slide slick against itself, can feel the expectant wetness there and my thrumming pulse, like the burning bassline you can still feel in your chest an hour after you leave the club.

My free hand moves down past the bottom of my white sleep shirt, cupping my warm sex, heel of my hand pressing blindly into my flesh, and I have to bend and rest my weight on the front of my smoking arm, laying it against the dresser.

Ash falls onto the white lacquered wood, missing the ashtray, and I don't care, I am gasping for breath as my middle finger strays, parting my wet flesh, stroking around the opening that aches in protest, remembering his curt entry and the way my body was so reluctant to admit him.

I press my finger deeper, hooking it, and it hurts, but it hurts in such a sweetly perfect and poisonous way.

He wanted me.

Enough to walk two buildings over in bare, wet feet.

Enough to ignore my obvious indifference and any nagging doubts his dignity may have whined as his fingers hovered over the keypad of his phone.

My fingers slipped between and inside, moving faster, harder, bordering on roughness as I remembered his cold feet, so cold, oh, they must have been freezing – only he probably didn't even notice, overwhelmed as he was with lust.

There was a burning, a bite of hot pain in my hand, so much stronger than the bare ache in my sex, but I didn't stop, I was so close, I was falling, I was twisting, I was bursting. My breath escaped in a sob as I climaxed so hard, my knees buckled, my body struggling to stay upright under the ferocity of the pleasure. Tight ripples of release overlapping, looping, returning again and again in an orgasm that felt like it might never end.

It took me a few seconds to pick myself up off the floor and realize that the fiery pain I'd felt had been actual fire, the cherry of my cigarette burning down to the filter and searing the skin of my fingers.

Maybe I couldn't feel anything.

But maybe I didn't need to.

Maybe what I could make someone else could feel was good enough.

.

The first step of my plan was to hit bottom.

To lower and degrade myself right down to nothing. Like priming a canvas, making me thirsty enough to soak up the desire of men. To feel something, finally, in what I could bring them to feel.

Actually, that was the entire plan. It was all I wanted.

I started out small. I'd never been to jail. Seemed like a good place to shed some dignity.

I had no idea how hard the system works to actually keep middle-class looking white women out of jail, even for a night.

I tried shoplifting; the store manager I turned myself in to thanked me for my honesty and offered me a job.

I tried public intoxication; the officer laid me gently down in the smelly back seat of the cruiser, told me some half-assed story about his teenage daughter as drove me home and left a glass of water and two aspirin next to my bed.

I went to the movies and screamed "Fire!"

The rest of the audience laughed at me, but I didn't stop. Shutting my eyes tight, I stuck my fingers in my ears, opened my mouth and screamed until my throat was thick and raw.

The manager took me by the elbow and led me sweetly outside. He asked if he could help me, if he could call someone. His eyes were avuncular, bloodshot, alarmed.

No desire. No spite. He looked at me like a driveway full of snow he had to shovel, not like a sleeping Leda.

This wasn't working.

I was going to have to try harder. A lot harder.

I tried to think of all the things they used to tell me not to do when I was a little girl.

Don't wear so much makeup.

Don't wear that short skirt. Go change out of that low-cut top before someone sees you.

Don't get into cars with men you don't know.

Don't whistle. Don't smile. Don't use swear words in public.

Don't drink alcohol without a chaperone.

Maybe if I layered all the little 'don't's together … I might get the kind of really big 'don't' I'm hoping for.

.

Preparing for it is next to impossible. I knew how to dress suggestively, or modestly, but how do you dress vulnerably? What clothes can indicate the desire to be defaced, debased, and destroyed?

I tried on twelve different combinations of scandalous, stilettoed, over-tight, over-short, midriff-baring, cleavage-exposing until I was practically shaking with frustration.

Nothing looked right. How could giving up be so nerve wracking?

Maybe it was only trying because I was still holding on to something.

Fuck it. I'll wear just my black bra and panties, sheathed in a winter-white wool trenchcoat.

It felt unbearably technical to stand still in my bathroom, leaning over into the mirror and exposing my sensitive, bare belly the cold sink to apply make-up. First, a berry stain to my licked-raw lips, then black kohl eyeliner, thick like marker strokes. I keep applying, layers on layers, never seeming dark enough. Tilting my head in the light, squinting, dipping, turning, it always looks shimmery grey.

Until I run my fingertips under the cold water, stinging my overheated skin, and lift them to rub my eyes, smudging the makeup into dramatic, chaotic desperation. A drop falls from my knuckle into my eyelashes, catching a tint of blackest black before rolling down my left cheek, faithful only to gravity.

There.

Now I was ready.

.

It would be easy to just walk into some bar, some club, sit down, have a few drinks, and wait for someone to come up to me with the same look in his eye that Jasper gets.

I try to think of a word for easier-than-easy.

It would be nothing. A piece of cake.

A breeze.

Child's play.

If that was what I wanted.

But I wanted a taste of what men struggle to contain within themselves.

A little sample of the beast.

I can't get that in a well-lit, open, public room. The monster likes dark, warmth, privacy.

It likes secrets and locks and unspoken needs.

I head for the seediest sports bar in town, the one near the prison. The one with the unlit parking lot.

And once I'm inside, I head straight for the men's room.

At first, I walk straight into the one stall with a working lock on the door and hide there, crouching on the toilet seat, forcing my breaths to be slower, to be silent.

A few times I hear a man come in, the scent of the room suddenly shifting.

A cough, or a belch.

The bright metal spark of a belt buckle, and a zip, and I am trembling, concealed within my pewter-gray cocoon, perched on the porcelain toilet.

The splash of piss, the sticky _schick_ of shifting shoes.

One of them stayed to wash his hands. One of them made a phone call to someone named Emmett, asking if he could come over in a voice so sleepy-low it reminded me of Jasper's in my ear.

None of them knocked on the door of my stall.

I could still change my mind, go home untouched.

But the ache would still reign.

No, I was here for a reason.

And I was not going home until I had felt the beast.

I stepped down from the toilet seat, my legs sighing with relief to be stretched out and bearing my weight vertically again. Drawing the silver flask out of my coat pocket, I unscrewed the cap and drank deeply of Bombay Dry. When my throat refused another drop of burn, I poured the remaining few ounces down the front of my body, watching them pool briefly in the little valley between my breasts before trickling down my bare belly, streaming over the front of the black lace panties, choosing sides and trailing cool and sharp down both legs.

I looked up and caught a glimpse of myself in the smudged, speckled mirror.

Soft cream coat wide open, black lingerie nestled inside like a lethal secret, silver flask flashing in one hand, over-blackened eyes looking like I used paving asphalt to line them.

I looked like a fucking disaster waiting to happen.

Which, for tonight, was the definition of perfect.

The juniper flavored fire in my belly loosened my chest, letting me breathe and even smile for a minute, tilting my face in the harsh fluorescent lighting that bounced off the white subway tiles like snowdrifts.

I was ready to fall.

No - falling requires willpower.

I was ready to be pushed.

I dropped the flask back into my coat pocket, and slid the cream-white sleeves down, exposing bare arms that rose up in goosebumps. Dropping it to clasp the collar in one hand, I stepped out of the stall, my heels click-clacking a slow rhythm on the sticky-slick tile.

I lean in close to the mirror, absorbing my expression reflecting back.

Okay.

It's time.

I let the coat fall to the floor, my only defense from the cold, infective black and white tiles of the men's room. How to lay myself on it? What position would be suggestive without leaving no choice? Face-down, ass-up seemed too posed, too needy. I wanted to look lost, tragic. Like a dirty, crumpled hundred dollar bill that just happened to float away from the bank robbery to lay in the grass at your feet.

Or maybe … maybe it wasn't the position of my body, but the position in the room that would have the most impact.

I moved the coat with the spike of my shoe heel so it lay partially in the shadow of the far left white porcelain sink, and partially in front of the rusted, dented trash can.

Perfect.

I lay my pale body down in the baby-pink satin lining, and curl up, and listen to my heart pound.

I remind myself of someone poised on a high ledge, contemplating the drop.

But I wasn't suicidal.

Not in the literal sense. Just in the emotional sense. I wanted to hit bottom and splatter on the floor, sink into the cracks. Only then could I be safe. Only then would I have nothing to lose.

I think I found my way down.

And this is it.

Here I am.

This is it.

I can still change my mind, I can still go home and not do this. If I'm too nervous, maybe I should go home.

But the thought of standing up, putting on my coat, and heading back to my car and my apartment and my life put a knot in my throat. Nothing will have changed, except I'll be a coward as well as a fool.

I was staying.

But the door stood untouched and still as I waited. How long would I have to wait? What if no one came in?

What if someone came in and they tried to help me up, brought me a coffee and drove me home? Ugh. I'd have to start over at another seedy bar.

But this was the one I wanted. This, and tonight.

The gin started to soften the curl of my body, warm my skin and smooth out my thoughts. I played with the little tag attached at the edge where satin met wool. I counted the times the fluorescent lighting flickered. I inhaled in the pinching-sweet smell of gin and felt the underwire of my bra, covered with alcohol-soaked black lace, rub against my skin with each breath.

Fuck it.

I sat up and took the bra off, tucking it into my coat pocket.

With hands that had finally stopped shaking, I cupped my breasts softly, the nipples hardening further with the sensation of exposure. They pressed into my palms as I caressed, insisting on attention, dragging themselves along the barely-damp skin. I squeezed harder, feeling my pulse so close there under my hand, my vulnerable little heart so unprotected under the thin skin and –

The door swung open, letting in two seconds worth of whatever 90s hard rock the speakers were vomiting out and the squeak of athletic shoes against the floor. I swallowed hard, my hands instantly dropping from my breasts, leaving the sensitive skin to contract in goosebumps in the cool air.

I snuck a glance at the man who stood at the urinal, his back towards me. He was average height, about thirty extra pounds, wearing a brown flannel that was tucked into the waistband of his store-brand jeans. He shifted his weight as he released his piss, giving a hearty smoker's cough.

I shut my eyes and pretended to be passed out.

For three long breaths, he continued, until I heard the thunder of the flush, and then the creak of the door.

Of course he hadn't seen me here, under the sink. Men don't wash their hands when they piss.

Should I move? Lie closer to the urinals? The floor was gleaming there, speckled with wetness whose origin I did not want to explore.

I didn't want to lay in piss. But I didn't want to go home empty either.

I started to wonder if maybe I was doing this all wrong, if maybe I should try placing a craigslist ad, if maybe I should try therapy again, if maybe I should have stayed –

The door.

"Shut the fuck up, man, that shit wasn't even scary."

"That's only cause you're spoiled by all the CG shit they have now. Trust me, when it came out, Poltergeist was seriously fucking terrifying."

Two of them.

I opened my eyes for the briefest blink and saw two pairs of shoes standing one urinal apart, one pair of shiny black business shoes dusted by what looked like black suit pants, and one pair of worn black boots with frayed clay-wash jeans hanging over them.

They continued to talk as they went.

"_My_ generation was spoiled by CG? That's bullshit. Look at all these awful fucking thrillers and action flicks that are all built around special effects. No fucking story, just effects. Movies used to have stories, they used to mean something. Now it's all fucking done by a computer, movies have got no soul anymore. I can't remember the last movie I saw that I really liked."

"Lord of the Rings."

"Lord of the Rings was a book first, man. A bunch of them. And all that Golem shit was creepy."

"Well I didn't ask if it was a goddamn book, I just – whoa."

Oh god.

They see me.

I struggle to keep my eyes closed, fight to restrain a nervous giggle. Acid rises up in my throat but the burning feels good, it grounds me.

"Jesus."

"Is she alive?"

"I think she's breathing. Yeah, she's alive. Smells like a fucking lush though."

"Did she fall, you think? Is there any blood?"

"I'm looking, shut the fuck up."

One of them kneels down beside me, puts a burning-hot hand on my shoulder and shook gently.

Shakes again, harder.

Presses a hand to my forehead.

Slaps me, full across the cheek. I only keep myself from opening my eyes and crying out in surprise by biting the inside of my mouth, hard, and picturing the pink handprint I'm sure will rise and swell up on my skin shortly.

"For fuck's sake, Carlisle!"

"What, I didn't hurt her! Just checking to see if she's going to wake up."

"Well?"

"I don't think she's going to fucking wake up." A dark chuckle.

My heart screams, screams, screams but I can't make out what it's saying over the hurricane of blood in my ears. I beg it to slow down, to be quiet the way a mother begs a crying child to be calm.

Hopelessly.

"... diabetic? Check for a bracelet. Does her breath smell like anything besides gin? If we can - "

"Shit, chill out, Edward. We're not at the hospital now."

"Yeah, but - "

"Shut the fuck up for a minute, okay?"

A hot hand is on my breast, squeezing it just less than gently, rubbing the pad of the thumb over my nipple, back and forth, back and forth. I fight to keep my breathing believable, slow and deep, while my heart was demands more oxygen, more, now, more.

"Oh, Christ, Carlisle, come on, the girl's passed out, let's just -"

"Shut the fuck up, Edward, all right? I'm just having a little fun."

He continues to grope at me with his hands, using the one on my breast to push me over onto my back, and I'm so glad I have the coat under me, the sudden icy sting of the tile over my whole back would have made me wince and this little game would have been forfeited.

He smoothes down over the skin of my belly with his hand, just to the edge of the black panties that still hold onto the Bombay, when he turns it into a claw and scratches upwards, dragging his nails up my skin slowly, leaving what I knew would be red lines streaming up my center, between my breasts until he reached my neck, where the hand softens again, fingers spreading across the thin skin, and I am sure it's over, sure he must feel my pulse drumming there, knows I'm aching for this, needing it so sharply …

Either that, or … or he would wrap his fingers around tighter and tighter until I died here, soaked in gin, nearly naked, on the floor of a mens' room in the worst part of town I could find.

The thought doesn't scare me; not nearly as much as going home without more.

"That's it, I'm leaving. And you need to leave her alone, or I'm calling the - "

"No. You're not calling anyone." The one with the business shoes, Carlisle, his voice goes midnight black. There's a shuffling, and then a squeak as one of the sink taps opens all the way.

"You're going to put the latch on the door and we're going to open up this little present."

The man in the jeans, he swallows so hard that I heard it.

"Come on, Carlisle," his voice is soft, persuasive, "whatever happened to do no harm?"

The answer is the protracted stutter of a zipper opening.

My stomach clenches in a dirty mixture of fear and anticipation, and I feel my blood suddenly hot, suddenly slow, burning like magma under my skin, resisting my heart's impulsive twitching, crawling through my veins instead of racing.

I hear his breath shaking, and a rough friction of fabric. He is getting himself hard.

The alcohol's gone to my head, making it easier to keep my eyes closed, and I press my tongue against the back of my teeth to keep from smiling.

All at once there's a thumb hooked in my mouth, and he twists the knuckle to open it wide.

"Here you go sweetheart," is all I hear over the rush of the tap and his cock is in my mouth.

For a moment I'm stunned, a little revolted at the slick head pressing inside, shedding the bitter-salt of his liquid against the side of my tongue, but instinct takes over as he lifts his hips and pushes in further, and I'm forced to move my tongue or choke. With his thumb still propping my mouth open, his other hand goes around to cup the back of my head, loose waves dripping between his fingers.

I barely hear the other man mutter, "Jesus."

As I lay my tongue flat against the bottom of my mouth to keep it from blocking my breath, it rubs against the ridge, and I both feel and hear the man inside me groan.

"Fuck, she likes it."

I am suddenly not sure how much I can participate in my own violation. Part of me wants to suck him in earnest, wants to open my eyes and watch him revel in the pleasure I have not granted him. But I know that would ruin it, for both of us.

Plus, he might finish too fast. I didn't go to all this trouble to have this end before it had really begun.

Gripping my hair, he urges more of himself into my mouth, filling it with the taste of skin and need. Apparently satisfied that I'm not going to bite him, he withdraws his thumb from my mouth and drops that hand to my breast again, gripping it roughly and rolling my nipple between the wet thumb and forefinger.

He's making this easy; while I can't purse my lips around his shaft without giving myself away, I could move my tongue back and forth, as long as I kept it slow. He'd never know it wasn't from the motions of his hips and the hand behind my head, as long as I didn't make a sound.

So I sink.

All my muscles into air, all my thoughts into dust.

I just sink, and _feel._

Feel the stretched-thin skin covering veins just behind the head, the little channels pulsing the blood of desire through his cock as he works it back and forth in my mouth.

Feel the grout in the tiles underneath me as my coat shifts with his movements.

Feel the shocked stare of his friend watching my mouth, opened and filled with a cock I'd never even seen.

I feel it, and I sink, and I am free.

Occupied, cold, burning, and free.

"Fuck, Edward, quit being a pussy and get over here and hit the other side."

"I don't ..." his voice is quiet, raw. I can almost hear how dry his mouth is.

Business Shoes goes dark again.

"Edward, that was not a request."

It fascinates me how this guy Carlisle could have such shiny shoes, how he could have such a soft, gentle voice, and could still have it in him to do what he was doing. What he thought he was doing.

Such shiny shoes.

A little shoeshine can do so much.

He halts his movements and it takes a conscious effort for me not to chase after him as he withdraws from my mouth.

"Edward, look at me."

A long pause. He doesn't want to see.

I feel a pinch in my heart for him.

"Edward, she's passed out. If she didn't wake up when I started, she's not going to. She won't remember any of this. Come on, man. I bet she's good and wet for you."

With that, he grabs the front of my panties, bunching them tightly in his hand and pulling them down my legs to my knees. The unwilling lace rolled up, digging into my skin where it should slide. He pushes a hand between my legs and it's cold, so cold it's almost impossible to restrain the whimper of shock as it slips into my warmth. I can feel my skin rise up in goosebumps again, as he slips easily back and forth.

"See that? She's fucking soaked."

Still no sound, no movement.

"All right, let me put it to you this way, Edward: you are not going to stand there and be a witness, you understand me? So get over here and fuck this pussy, or I will make sure you don't have a tale to tell. This is not an option. Are we clear?"

He says the last part more like a statement than a question. His voice, so musical when they entered the room, is so low, so cold. It makes me think of the ocean, the very bottom of the ocean. The places miles deep, where sunlight has never fallen, where creatures we still cannot name exist.

I hear his breath shake as he draws it, and wonder about the pull his companion has over him. Are they co-workers? Friends? Related, even?

As I am wondering, the timid sound of a sole on the floor.

The clear metal clink, siren of a belt buckle opening.

Carlisle's hands are on my body, bringing my knees back together and turning my body half-upright to balance on them, ass in the air. My legs slide apart on the satin coat lining, but they're held together by the panties digging into my thighs, and I can feel the air on my exposed sex.

I am on display.

Carlisle drags my head into his lap and brings himself into my mouth again, but not as deep. It slips out, and he slaps himself once against my face before it's back in, the whole rapidly-cooling head and maybe another inch or so, not the full length. In this new position, I have no choice but to let some drool escape, and I imagine it soaking into his very expensive feeling pants. In a couple of days, some dry-cleaner will smile and hand these back to their owner, carefully pressed and hung, having erased the evidence that I was here, that I was _this_.

I like this thought.

I feel Edward behind me, his hands on my hips, testing his own touch. His hands are warmer than Carlisle's, and I feel my goosebumps smoothing out.

He pauses, his palms making nervous circles against my hips. Carlisle is back to shallow thrusts in my mouth, the ridge sliding in and out of the corner of my lips. I think he's too distracted with Edward to focus. He doesn't want to finish. He wants to watch his companion. Maybe more than he wants to come.

Edward leaves one hand on my hip and the other is gone, a subtle jingle of his belt alerting me that he's freeing himself, stroking slowly.

This high right now, it is beyond anything, beyond any drug or landscape or kiss I have ever tasted, and I am pure, wet electricity as he lines himself up to me, sliding easily up and down, wetting himself with my desperate need.

I can feel his hands shaking. Carlisle has fallen out of my mouth and it lets me focus on everything else, every sense, every singing nerve, every single moment of my life; on this, right now, this, finally, this.

"Carlisle, I don't - "

There's a shift in Carlisle's body, a brush of fabric, and Edward gasps, the hand on my hip gripping me suddenly, pulling me slightly closer, almost protective.

"Edward. Anthony. Cullen. Quit fucking around and do it."

"Christ, Carlisle, is that thing loaded?"

"You want to find out?"

There is a long moment where no one speaks and no one moves, and I am still, helpless as a feather. I feel my heart knocking against my ribs, and Edward's hand still pressing into my hip.

I wonder why the new fact of a weapon doesn't make me afraid. I'm trying to decide if it makes this better or not when Edward returns his flesh to mine, the tip of him cool and missing my warmth. He spreads me, rubbing up and down, picking up slickness, once, twice and then pushing, slow as a flame, and he's inside, and it's impossible, it's just like I wanted, it's everything I hoped for, it hurts and it fits and it feels so good. The pulling, the stretching, the alarming sensation of intrusion, it starts between my legs but it spreads up my spine, fills my belly and creeps into my skull and I am lost, dizzy, dreaming, inside of the sun.

I am spilled milk.

I lose myself for a moment and a deep moan of relief rolls out of my throat, but it's vague, a small, low sound, and if either of the men notices it, I cannot tell.

He's big, bigger than Jasper, and I feel my body struggling to accept him as he lifts my hips flush against his. His fingers flutter at my hips, and slide up my body to my sides, where the skin is so thin, laying his fingers in the spaces between my ribs.

Inside, all the way inside my body, I feel his warm skin covering mine, and feel him exhale slowly. He withdraws, and despite the easy slide, there's a pull inside me that aches until he moves forward again, a little faster.

"There you go," Carlisle murmurs, and I can't tell who he's talking to, but he has completely forgotten about my mouth, and my head, still resting on his lap, begins to shake gently as he strokes himself with a quick, short rhythm.

Edward's movements get gradually quicker, his hands growing warmer and tighter against me, and a whimper of effort sounds through his nose, while I am flying underneath him, filled with heaven. I am gone, weightless, I am light. This experience of being completely vulnerable, my body opened and used, a vessel for his pleasure, I think to myself that this is what having a soul feels like, and though I want to feel him reach completion, I don't ever want this feeling to end.

His pace is allegro now, sparks inside my belly flaring and consuming, and I press my eyes closed so tightly I see patterns. For an instant I am outside myself, watching myself, curious about this pale, limp girl with her head cradled on wool suit pants, a man who she's never seen burying himself inside her on the dank floor of a men's room, scent of gin and sweat and disregard clinging close on her skin.

And then I remember that I am her, that he is holding _my_ body with his hands as he begins to sweat, as he swears low with his undervoice, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," and then my heart beats once, hard, and my orgasm is like a car crash.

The involuntary sucking in of breath.

The helpless twisting, the bright white impact, the spread of broken glass glittering in headlights.

A pause, not even half a breath, and I explode into flame, burning in waves of tightly spun bliss, my body unraveling as his fingertips dig in, printing waning-moon-crescent shapes with his nails as he empties into me, pushes himself deeper and holds still, leaving a piece of himself inside me like a splinter, a thorn.

It is no longer an effort to restrict my movement, to stay limp; I am nectar, spineless, flowing.

Even my eyelashes feel perfectly, wonderfully fucked.

Carlisle, whom I had almost forgotten about, releases a groan and shakes himself hard, and there is a slight wet pull on my hair as he spends himself into my hair, and I picture each pulse landing on the bottle blonde waves, sliding down the slopes and curves like milky tears.

I listen to their breath come back down slowly, the rush of the water still a lonely static, singing to my memory.

Edward is the first to rise, removing himself from my swollen, begging heat quickly, as though he'd suddenly woken up from a dream. He stands, his feet shuffling, and pulls his jeans up, and the sound of the zipper closing him away stings me.

Carlisle lingers for a beat, heaving a sigh before standing straight, letting my head hit the floor with a hard thump. I'm unbalanced in this new position, and my knees, still bound up in my panties, slip off the pink satin, and I fall slowly onto my side, resting my weight comfortably on my side again.

"Fuck, I gotta get out of here. Esme gets pissed when I come home late."

I think to myself that Esme has a lot bigger grudges than that.

"But, what – we're just going to – we're just going to leave her here?" Edward's voice is high, incredulous. I wish I could tell him to breathe, to calm down. He sounds like the opposite of how I feel. I'm sunk, easy and cold on the ocean floor, and he's struggling, splashing and floundering at the surface.

"Yeah. She's fine, she won't remember any of this," he says, and I can hear him smoothing out his pants, brushing off imaginary dirt from the floor where I lay. "Let's go."

"Let me just – I'll be out in a second."

Carlisle slides the door latch open with a snap, and when he opens the door with a squeak, no music floods in, just muffled voices. It must be last call.

Edward walks to the sink closest to me, and I hear water slapping the porcelain rhythmically, like he's splashing it over his face, again and again.

I can't help it, I open my eyes. His black boots are just inches from me, and drunk on oxytocin, I reach out one little finger to touch them while he tries to wash himself away. One little finger surfing along the line where the sole meets the upper.

Suddenly he grabs a few paper towels, and shuts off the tap.

He bends down and there's a coolness that makes me want to gasp, right by my face. The rustle of brown paper against my hair.

"Shit, shit, shit," he curses, under his breath.

He stands, pulls down more paper towels, bends again and dabs them carefully at the mess Carlisle left in my hair. He tosses them in the trash and I am pretty sure his thoughtful attempt to clean it up has only spread it around.

He moves to straddle me, one leg on either side, and gently works the roll out of my lace panties, tugs them up my legs as best as he can, falling somewhat short of covering me.

And I don't know why I do it, I don't know what I think I have to see, but I open my eyes.

And he's looking right at me.

He's young, maybe my age or a little younger. He's got hair that defies a single color, and water is dripping down his face and making it shine. His brow furrows as he stares at me, and I wonder if I should smile at him, if I can move my face to tell him some thing he didn't know.

And that's when I notice his eyes.

They have holes in them. I can't even tell the color for the darkness, the empty sucking place that I see there exceeding the one in my own heart. There is a place there where light belongs and it is absent. A gash in his soul, filled with questions, leaking hurt so deep i can see it in his eyes.

And I realize, for the first time, what I have done.

I chose this. He did not.

In offering myself to be raped, I have made both of us rapists.

.

.

.

Told ya.

Thank you for reading.

Please see the rest of the Beyond the Pale entries in their c2 here: www (dot) fanfiction (dot) net/community/Beyond_The_Pale_Contest_Entries/83159/14/0/1/ and vote for your favorites starting November 28th.


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